The
Challenge of the 3rd Millennium
The
Centre for Change & Mindquest Conference aim to contribute towards the development
of a culutre which will bring about the integration of human life with
nature in order to develope a more sustainable lifestyle. It places
stress on equity, justice, preservation of family and a practical action
plan that goes beyond mere theory. Global approaches are essential so
that humanity marches in unity towards its goals. The main theme of
the conference will be the assuring of a sustainable future for all.
Social Political and Economic Transformation
Present economic, corporate and social policies are largely inconsistent
with viable, long term global development and are being made without
the vision of a viable global future in mind.
Structure of Relationship Between Developed and Developing Nations
There exists a crisis in transferral of technology and resources to
the developing world. Further, there exists an overwhelming Third World
debt.
Two conditions must be satisfied before international economic exchanges
can become beneficial for all: the sustainability of ecosystems on which
the Global economy depends must be guaranteed, and the economic partners
must be satisfied that the basis of exchange is equitable. For living
standards to grow in order to alleviate poverty, trends towards depressed
commodity prices, protectionism, intolerable debt burdens and declining
flows of development finance must be reversed.
Macro - Environmental Global Issues
The 1990s will see the largest number of children ever born in a single
decade (1.5 billion). 82% of children in the world live in developing
nations.
Every two seconds a child dies
In the developing world a billion people live below the hunger line.
Many of these people are illiterate. Environmental phenomena such as
the greenhouse effect, climate change, ozone depletion and acid rain
are intricately interconnected. Technology developed in the name of
progress, and high resource and energy consumption by the developed
world, is at the root of the destruction of the environment.
No threat is greater, no crisis more profound to common humanity, than
the threat of nuclear war. There are between 40,000 and 50,000 nuclear
warheads in the world today - enough to destroy sixty times Earth's
population. Fifteen to twenty developing countries will have nuclear
capability by the end of this decade.
For a fraction of arms race spending, about several hundred billion
annually, sanitation and clean water could be supplied to all the deprived
peoples of the world. Wide spread diseases could be prevented; schooling
and medicine provided.
Specific Global Issues - Crisis Between Rich and Poor
There are now 6 billion people on this planet, compared to 1.5 billion
at the start of 1900. Three in every five people are hungry and very
poor if current trends persist. The crisis between rich and poor causes
increasing enmity. The increasing population leads to further degradation
of the environment. Priority must be given to stabilising and reducing
the population, and therefore the demand on world resources, by the
use of family planning and contraception.
A Global Crisis of Social Values
The global crisis is symptomatic of the inadequacies of our social values.
Ethical and moral value systems have not evolved swiftly enough to keep
up with technological inventiveness, thereby keeping rampant greed in
check. We are living through a crisis of international relationships
in which only a profound social epiphany, leading to a paradigmatic
shift unlike any other in history, can save us from total self destruction.
We must re-appraise the way we define ourselves and what it means to
be a human being. We must re-examine and redefine concepts of good and
evil and how we apply them to ourselves. We must stop valuing each other,
and ourselves, by an unsteady hierarchical system which instigates suspicion,
defensiveness and secrecy. Instead, we must develop an outlook of partnership
and mutualism, whereby the individual is encouraged to develop fully
and then contribute their unique abilities to the planet as part of
a synergistic whole.
A Planetary Culture
What is needed is a new international humanitarian era based on the
common ground of humanity - looking to life and common humanism as the
core value for a sustainable society. This means not just human life.
It means the whole spectrum of life that creates the biosphere.
People cannot live on beliefs, ideals and other imponderables alone.
They need food, work, education and satisfaction of desires for themselves
and their children. A sustainable society will look at new ways of producing
sustainable energy and sustainable agriculture. A new global era implies
the imbuing of education literacy and life affirming values in every
global citizen.
For too long the vast populations of our planet, through ignorance,
misinformation and silence, have been unable to understand the cause
- effect relationships between the real origins of their misfortunes
and the destruction of our planet.
Ingrained and elitist attitudes of governments and industries prevent
non-polluting, free energy producing systems and sustainable production
of food for all.
It is the consciousness of the ordinary global citizen which can create
an alternative plan and a New World Peace Era for the planet.
A Planetary Culture implies science, technology, healing relationships,
economics, government and education seen from the broadest perspective
- not nation based, but global and holistically based, stimulating new
ways of thinking to enhance our connectedness, and goes beyond isms
and ideologies to recognising the sacredness of all life. It implies
the creation of new art, literature and music, and the development of
a life philosophy which is based on the universal principles inherent
in human activity.
CENTRE
FOR CHANGE
(The Challenge of the 3rd Millennium)
© 1989-1999
to Dr Michael Ellis
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